Facebook Finally Launches Its New Oversight Board for Content Moderation (nbcnews.com) 111
NBC News reports that "Social media users who believe their posts have been unfairly removed from Facebook or Instagram can now file an appeal to Facebook's Independent Oversight Board, the company announced Thursday."
Positioned as a "Supreme Court" for Facebook's content moderation decisions, the external panel of 20 journalists, academics, lawyers and human rights experts will weigh in — and potentially override its content moderation decisions. The board has up to 90 days to review cases submitted by users through its website after they have exhausted their content appeal options directly with Facebook. If the Board sides with the user, Facebook will restore the content and potentially re-evaluate its policies.
"The Oversight Board wasn't created to be a quick fix or an all-encompassing solution," said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the board and former prime minister of Denmark. But it aims to "offer a critical independent check on Facebook's approach to moderating some of the most significant content issues." By announcing the board on Thursday, Facebook has launched an unprecedented model of governance that no other social media outlet has created... "The Oversight Board has the potential to revolutionize how we think about the relationship between private corporations and our public rights," said Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at the St. John's University School of Law, who has published research on the Oversight Board. "It's a step toward recognition that these transnational companies control our public rights in a way that governments don't and that we need to create a participatory and democratic mechanism to inform those companies that those rights are protected...."
"Of all the criticisms that are lodged against Facebook, I think one of the biggest is that we can't trust them," Jamal Greene, a Columbia Law School professor and co-chair of the Oversight Board, said in an interview in September. "One of the aims of the Oversight Board is to try to establish an institution that can be trusted..." During test panels, there were times when board members noted that their decision could affect Facebook's commercial model. For example, being more permissive about images containing some types of nudity on the platform could deter users in parts of the world with stricter cultural norms.
"The reaction has always been 'Well, that's not our problem, that's Facebook's problem,'" said board member Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian. "So I don't think anyone is coming into this thinking we're here to help Facebook continue with life as normal."
"The Oversight Board wasn't created to be a quick fix or an all-encompassing solution," said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the board and former prime minister of Denmark. But it aims to "offer a critical independent check on Facebook's approach to moderating some of the most significant content issues." By announcing the board on Thursday, Facebook has launched an unprecedented model of governance that no other social media outlet has created... "The Oversight Board has the potential to revolutionize how we think about the relationship between private corporations and our public rights," said Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at the St. John's University School of Law, who has published research on the Oversight Board. "It's a step toward recognition that these transnational companies control our public rights in a way that governments don't and that we need to create a participatory and democratic mechanism to inform those companies that those rights are protected...."
"Of all the criticisms that are lodged against Facebook, I think one of the biggest is that we can't trust them," Jamal Greene, a Columbia Law School professor and co-chair of the Oversight Board, said in an interview in September. "One of the aims of the Oversight Board is to try to establish an institution that can be trusted..." During test panels, there were times when board members noted that their decision could affect Facebook's commercial model. For example, being more permissive about images containing some types of nudity on the platform could deter users in parts of the world with stricter cultural norms.
"The reaction has always been 'Well, that's not our problem, that's Facebook's problem,'" said board member Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian. "So I don't think anyone is coming into this thinking we're here to help Facebook continue with life as normal."
And still (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It will be fully infiltrated by daybreak. Look forward to a future where Facebook now gets paid "protection money" in addition to their regular advertising revenue.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I saw this eventuality coming years ago. I can't say that I saw it manifesting like this, though. But I suppose it does make sense. Crooks are attracted to "oversight boards" like foxes to henhouses. They were probably lining up to apply for this guard position. 9 out of 20 are lawyers, seriously? And how many billions live their lives in the Zuckgarten now? They're not going to be able to deal with the magnitude of the problem. But it probably is enough to deal with various heads of state and warlord
Good that nobody will be happy (Score:2)
The only real solution is to have multiple social media companies. Communicating on open platforms. Facebook-clean can be SJW pure. Facebook-dirty might contain posts that might upset some people. 4chan can continue to contain obnoxious rubbish.
So this quest for private censorship could break up the monopolies. And Facebook knows that. There is no way they can ever censor enough for the SJWs and bureaucrats and still appeal to a mainstream audience.
Nobody will ever be happy (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't really matter anyway, if the FCC changes section 230 it's going to be open season on controversial content since none of them will want to get sued anyway. Might not be a bad thing, it would certainly limit the power of the societal cancer that is social media. Won't be much fun to watch Reddit, 4Chan, SomethingAwful, and many (many) others shut down their comment sections for fear of a bankruptcy inducing lawsuit but whatever... Oh well, to make an omelet you gotta crack a few eggs. A FaceBook full of baby pictures and cat vids will certainly be less annoying than the troll drivel that passes for content today anyway.
The round robin had to end anyway. Social media companies took turns suppressing content from various liberal / conservative sources, and created a ridiculous echo chamber. You generated enough clicks, or are "important" enough, you could break pretty much any rule without regard to consequences. Of course the reckoning was coming, and it will be the end of companies being able to host (and that includes web hosting companies) any controversial content for fear of being sued into oblivion.
Re: (Score:3)
Conservatives won't go to those other platforms. They want their messages to be heard, and not just by other people who got booted off the popular sites.
Platforms (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm saying no one goes there and if they do they find a hellscape that makes them leave.
Turns out rules are a good idea if you want people to listen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They DO go to those other platforms, and then those platforms get removed from the face of the earth by monopolists and locked out even even basic banking and hosting services.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
FaceBook / Twitter ... They are a private company, and can ...
But I keep hearing that is a PUBLIC square, So is it, or isn't it?
Or like other ginormous companies like A, G, and A again, and Mr. S's cat, they are what they want to be when they want to be it. It's nice to be the Kings.
Public Square (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Considering the hosting companies will just kick you off or Cloudfront won't offer DDOS protection, it sounds like if your site doesn't pay a little lip service to the woke crowd, you'll get pushed off the Internet anyway.
The future of the Internet is little to no user generated content and information will mostly just flow in one direction. That's all this censoring of these companies will accomplish. I guess that's the goal for government anyway.
So yeah, fuck free speech. When you can't setup your own web
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Truth be told this should be expected. I also think there is a 50/50 chance of these te
Re: (Score:2)
"Separate but Equal" has long been a thing for Democrats - they loved this policy all across the south-east part of the nation for decades, while applying it to schools, bathrooms, drinking fountains, lunch counters, bus seats...
You seem to forget those Democratic Party members either disavowed segregation (e.g. Robert Byrd) or became the Dixiecrats, e.g. Senator Strom Thurmond. The same senator who later joined the Republican Party as part of Nixon's Southern Strategy. You might want to keep up before using talking points that are ridiculous and make your understanding of American politics look, well, foolish.
This country is divided enough already with all sorts of special groups in their own little bubbles and not enough conversation crossing ideological boundaries, but you think it's a good thing to encourage people to move even deeper into echo chambers????
Try holding a contrary opinion on pretty much any board. You'll find out, as an example, that even questioning something
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
This is merely an attempt by Facebook to give the appearance that they are doing something. It is 100% pure bullshit.
I have no Facebook account and have never posted or viewed anything there, and yet, I have somehow managed to live a perfectly normal, happy life. If you care the slightest about Facebook then *YOU* are the problem, not Facebook. If you worry that you are somehow being "left out" by not participating in silly Facebook bullshit, then once again, *YOU* are the problem, not Facebook.
More imp
Re: (Score:2)
I'm curious of the political, ethnic, gender, religious, and upbringing breakdown is on this group of 20.
Maybe because... (Score:1)
Of the 20 people named, there's only ONE Republican, and he's a Bushie "establishment" guy and Stanford prof (not some grass-roots Republican, not from "fly over country", etc) - so more-than-likely a never-Trumper coastal elite sort.
Not a single person on that board has anything in common with the half of the country that supports Trump.
gee, I wonder how they'll rule on any disagreement regarding pro/anti Trump content...
Not a single person on that board has conservative views on social policies.
I wonder h
Re: (Score:2)
and he's a Bushie "establishment" guy and Stanford prof
Those are the worst kinds of republicans. Bush was a terrible president.
Re: (Score:3)
Hahaha! THAT'S what concerned you?
How about this: They have a board comprised of TWENTY people. How many millions of users do they have? If all twenty worked independently, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, could they possibly review every contested take down?
One size fits all? (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is that we live in a world in which there are large cultural and legal differences in what is perceived as acceptable speech. This board will not be able to span these differences.
The only ethical option is in my opinion to allow individual users to determine filtering settings by themselves. But that will of course be opposed by powerful political forces that want to control speech for one reason or another.
Re: (Score:2)
And just to clarify: There are of course still legal boundaries in every country that Facebook also needs to abide to. The individual settings should be limited to the censorship in addition to the legally required censorship.
Re: (Score:3)
The reality is that we live in a world in which there are large cultural and legal differences in what is perceived as acceptable speech. This board will not be able to span these differences.
The reality is most users are obscenely lazy and ignorant when it comes to computing devices.
The only ethical option is in my opinion to allow individual users to determine filtering settings by themselves. But that will of course be opposed by powerful political forces that want to control speech for one reason or another.
Not quite. This will be controlled and manipulated by powerful political forces who want to control default settings, for all the reasons I've already stated. Options barely matter anymore. This is why Google still dominates the search market.
Re:One size fits all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the users get to pick? They are the product, the cattle on this ad farm. The advertisers get to choose what content is not acceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
You would think that the largest social media platform in the world would say to advertisers "You should be honored we're even speaking to you, let alone negotiating."
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Section 230 was supposed to give tech companies the legal protection to allow private filtering of content, not "corporate" filtering. The intent is in its very title and in the statutory language:
"47 U.S. Code 230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material".
(b) Policy -- It is the policy of the United States ... (3) to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet
Re: (Score:3)
When services expand to the point of having so many people there's always someone who'll find something offensive or rather obscene then you're really going to struggle with that. When originally written it would have
Re: (Score:2)
I never accidentally found porn in my life. Stop being a liar. We all know people search for porn and then get caught and, oh how did I get here. Bullshit. Porn just doesn't jump out of no where unrequested.
Re: (Score:2)
I never accidentally found porn in my life. Stop being a liar. We all know people search for porn and then get caught and, oh how did I get here. Bullshit. Porn just doesn't jump out of no where unrequested.
My wife's first internet search, roughly 25 years ago, was a quest for new ways to can tomatoes. She did a single word search: Tomato, About half her results pointed to porn sites.
Because search engine filters have improved a lot since then, it is much less likely to happen today. But, there are still common words and phrases that will generate unintended porn results. Like the rest of the on-line businesses, porn sites go out of their way to be as visible as possible. so their search-engine keywords are
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Happened to me today: loweshardware.com
You've been warned.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a problem where for example it's normal for a bunch of atheists to draw muhammad and mock him. Under Islam that's not allowed. If you have a multi-cultural online community those two are simply not compatible. You end up either violating the atheists rights or creating a place muslims must observe people act freely as they might when not prohibited by religion which is in turn prohibited in the islamic religion. That infringes on my religious freedoms.
No. No. Just fucking no.
You have no fucking right to dictate the behavior of others, outside of societal norms like murder, theft, etc being crimes.
If you believe the flying spaghetti monster says you shouldn't use ricotta cheese on the holy noodles, that's fine. Don't do it. If I eat ricotta cheese on my noodles, (say it with me now) I have NOT VIOLATED YOUR RIGHTS.
The slippery slope here is clear as day, and will allow those who want to control others to ban EVERYTHING in the name of "rights."
Remember
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is people don't think of atheists of having religious fre
Re: (Score:2)
My apologies for misunderstanding you. I see how your statement can be read either way (my misunderstanding was related to the switch from third to first person, which is confusing). I don't know where I said anything about atheists not having religious freedom, or being "empty or blank?" My comment is actually defending the atheist side over the theist one, so I'm still a bit confused, here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not suggesting that you need to adhere to someone else's philosophy. I do think you raise a fundamental misunderstanding that my original reply to you was addressing, though:
Consider for example these two cases: a. You're not allowed to kiss another man. b. You must kiss a man.
In those two example we have come to accept that both are wrong. It's usually easier or seen as easier to not do something than to do something. For example, it's easier to not draw Muhammad than to draw Muhammad.
"You're not allowed to kiss a man." "You must not draw Muhammad." Both of these things are restrictive. You can argue about whether or not the state has the lawful power to compel you to obey (I would personally argue "no" to both of these--who you kiss is none of the state's business, and neither is what you draw) but fundamenta
Re: (Score:2)
I think the cake situation is a bit different. That's stretching the law a bit into the domain where it was not intended. In that case they're infringing on someone else's right to force them to say something they don't want to. Small business is more personal and I just see that as bullying. Incidents like that leave me to see LGBT, which at this point has become a cult, as little different to the church in respe
Re: (Score:2)
That interpretation of "private" doesn't make sense if you read the full text, it doesn't even make sense if you read the full sentence, what would private screening mean and why would it need to be regulated. Ianal but imho the private part seems to refer to anything non-governmental as in "private entity".
Bwahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
Independent my ass.
Basically it's simply another layer of moderation subject to being subverted (and is probably pre-subverted) towards FB's political bias.
Re: (Score:2)
Basically it's simply another layer of moderation subject to being subverted (and is probably pre-subverted) towards FB's political bias.
I think we will all be surprised when on the day after the election, Facebook announces that the winner for President of the US is . . . Mark Zuckerberg.
Oh, and Mark will win the VP race, too.
And a handful of Senate seats.
Re: (Score:1)
What is Facebook's political bias?
They seem to prefer small government and low taxes. Minimal regulation, except where it benefits them by keeping competitors out. Facebook seems to go out of its way to support the right and make things easier for them:
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
https://www.vox.com/recode/214... [vox.com]
So I guess that means they are biased against progressive, left leaning ideas. Certainly seems to be supported by the available
Re:Bwahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
None of those articles even claim that Facebook is doing anything underhanded to boost the right. They're just complaining that right-wing content gets more "engagement" than left-wing content. That's not surprising, given how deranged most left-wing content is these days. It mostly sounds like your comment, dishonestly complaining about the right connecting more with the America that lives and works outside of newsrooms and faculty break rooms.
Re: (Score:2)
The claim was that Facebook enforces its own political bias. If that is the case we should look at which politics are thriving on Facebook, and it's the right.
So either Facebook's efforts are failing or they are supporting right wing politics. Which do you think it is?
Re: (Score:2)
Where's the evidence that Facebook enforces a political bias? You skipped the part where you demonstrate that the claim has merit. Read your articles more closely -- one of them even points out that left-wingers "hate share" content, which inflates the engagement numbers, and a lot of their sources pointing out other limitations and biases in the "engagement" metric. For example, "engagement" is biased in favor of heavy users rather than people who only use Facebook for a short time each day.
You are accu
Re: (Score:2)
Oh I'm not claiming it has merit, I'm responding to the GP's claim by pointing out that if it's true then it's not the kind of bias he thinks it is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you were lying when you wrote this?
Compare the groups Facebook banned recently. Patriot Prayer, after one of their members was murdered. Rose City Antifa, after organizing months of riots and violent attacks in Portland. Oh, wait, they didn't ban that Antifa cell. Or Turning Point USA, for being a conservative advocacy group. Compared to, um, no similar left-wing g
Re: (Score:2)
I had to look up Patriot Prayer, turns out they are white nationalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Facebook has a *azi problem so I'm not surprised they were banned.
But those are the fringes. If you look at the links I provided they are saying that as far as slightly more mainstream politics go Facebook is the stronghold of the right. That's the impression I get when using it too, Twitter is far more liberal.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your days of terrible reading comprehension have certainly come to a middle. Wikipedia says "[w]hite nationalists as well as far-right groups, such as Proud Boys[7] have attended the rallies organized by Patriot Prayer", not that Patriot Prayer is a white nationalist group or endorses such groups. Of course, you fell for the guilt-by-association fallacy, which is why someone put it there.
Twitter is far more illiberal than Facebook. Twitter very "progressively" suppresses speech that their employees don't
Re: (Score:1)
Patriot Prayer are also currently urging people to 'fight back' against facemarks, so even if they are not white nationalists, they are still scum.
I tried to find more information, but they seem to have a strong preference for video content over text - there's only the bare minimum of text on their own web presence, but a lot of video announcements. Text I can skim through quickly, but I'm not going to waste half an hour of my precious spare time looking through video when I could spend it on something more
Re: (Score:2)
Oh I read it, more of it than you apparently did.
Patriot Prayer is a far-right group
According to BBC News, Patriot Prayer have been connected to the alt-right as well as other far-right groups.
Its supporters have made threats online against CAIR, prompting an investigation by authorities.[36][37][38] Patriot Prayer has a history of harassing and assaulting Abolish ICE and other leftist activists.[39][40][41]
During the August 13 rally in Seattle, such groups had no obvious presence, but a week earlier at another rally in Portland, Oregon, which was led by Gibson, members of Identity Evropa were in attendance.[43] The SPLC describes them as "violent extremists" on their website.[44]
And sure enough that's why Facebook banned them.
In September 2020, Facebook took down the pages for Patriot Prayer and Gibson as part of their efforts to remove "violent social militias" from its social networks.[45]
See, most people aren't falling for their "oh we aren't fascists, we just organize these peaceful protests and it's not our fault that the Proud Boys and neo-*azi groups keep turning up!"
Re: (Score:2)
You're pulling an article from Wikipedia on a politically charged subject. One that quotes the SPLC as an authority.
I bet you consider yourself to be intelligent, too.
Sheesh!
Re: (Score:2)
None of that says Patriot Prayer is a white nationalist group. You are seeing things that aren't there. The SPLC doesn't label Patriot Prayer as white nationalist, and neither does the ADL. They call them "far-right violent extremists", not "white nationalists".
You say po-tay-to I say po-tah-to, a distinction without a difference. (cue Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers)
Re: (Score:2)
The SPLC is a dangerous, libelous, thoroughly discredited racketeering outfit that's been forced to pay MILLIONS for egregiously slandering even practicing muslims as "dangerous anti-islamic extremists" and other such hoaxes.
Also the Proud Boys is literally led by a black latino and 20% black, compared to you and your fellow fringe leftists who are one of the single most homogenously white groups in the entire country. The Proud Boys are literally almost ten times as black by membership as the social justic
Re: (Score:2)
No. Patriot Prayer, and the Proud Boys which they're compared to, are objectively NOT white supremacist.
If so, they're, paradoxically, full of "white supremacists of color"...
Re: (Score:2)
Right. The *azis had Jews in their organization in the early days, I guess that means they were not anti-Semitic.
Re: (Score:2)
The National Socialist Worker's Party of Germany was never led by a jew and were never literally more jewish than the general population. The Proud boys are 20% black by membership and led by a black latino. The general population of the US is about 13% black. The "progressive" left is less than 3% black.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but Conservatives aren't National Socialists.
So please stop trying to pull a Godwin.
Re: (Score:2)
Try looking somewhere other than a far left site that college courses give people credit for subverting. Like, yknow, the fact that it was literally founded by a half-asian guy and is so much more racially diverse than the social justice cult that people had to invent the concept of a "multicultural white supremacist" to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ask the NY Post.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh no. Look at which political camp is getting regularly censored and delisted.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they are trying to protect the moderate right from all the extremists.
Re: (Score:2)
By purposefully suppressing the reporting of a national news agency like the NY Post...
Suuuure!
Re: (Score:2)
I said their political bias.
FB is not Right-biased.
And anyone suggesting that is deranged.
Re: (Score:1)
Helle Thorning Smidt, who is co chair and former danish prime minister, is not too bright. Thats why she got only one period.
Her main quality, is that others can get her to do what they want.
you misunderstood the application of that word (Score:2)
In this context, "independent" means "not Zuckerberg" and for the purpose of those pesky "who's to blame?" type questions about censorship - particularly when those questions are asked by persons getting government paychecks and more so when they are asked while anybody is under oath...
Just like accounts. (Score:2)
They will be strict and want proofs. :(
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Might work, but then we would need to distinguish between actual satire sites and fake news sites that have a "this is satire" link buried deepy in their about page to avoid lawsuits.
If they act in good faith, it could be useful (Score:2)
It's a good idea. It could work, if there's legitimate, good faith buy-in from the board and Facbook. I'll believe it when I see it.
It's not a new idea. We've been establishing oversight boards in other contexts for a long time. The board needs to have the power to enforce its decisions. Can Zuckerberg override the board? Can others at Facebook? If the board's decisions are unpopu
Re: (Score:2)
If they were planning to act in good faith, the board would have a totally different makeup.
Re: (Score:2)
An expensive fig leaf (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are some high-powered names. Expensive people to task with reviewing somebody's random post. Somehow, I expect the board will only ever see "Hunter Biden" type cases - and not censored posts by ordinary users. In the case of Hunter Biden, any action will come far too late to have any relevance.
Of course, that is the unspoken reason for having this board: Facebook can claim they have a neutral review process, but in reality that process will be so slow as to be utterly useless. A fig leaf so that they can pretend decency.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you hit the nail on the head. The process does not have to be slow, just not instantaneous and require several steps over a couple of weeks.
You have to go to a different website to bring the appeal. There will probably be several stages in the process. And according to the new board's website, they don't even have to consider all cases that are appealed https://oversightboard.com/app... [oversightboard.com] .
Many folks will get a one-off angry meme removed, start the appeal, but never bother to complete it because a
A rather obvious flaw (Score:3)
"It's a step toward recognition that these transnational companies control our public rights in a way that governments don't and that we need to create a participatory and democratic mechanism to inform those companies that those rights are protected...."
First off, simply conceding that big corporations "control our rights" and moving directly to a slow, convoluted, and ultimately toothless mitigation mechanism is cowardly at best; at worst it's either a 'fifth column' or a modern example of Vichy France.
Secondly, there's that "in a way that governments don't". WTF? Are we so ready to roll over and abandon democracy for corporatocracy that somebody can say this in all seriousness and with a straight face and not be called on it? 'Oh well, it was a nice democratic institution while it lasted, but I guess it's done now so let's just bow to the inevitable and place our necks back into the yoke of feudalism'. Make no mistake, that's what's being said here.
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose the government punishes what is illegal. But corporations punish what isn't sufficiently progressive. We have two rulers.
Oversight board is a sham (Score:5, Insightful)
The board is a sham designed to give Facebook the appearance of impartiality. When you create your own court and set up a panel of judge all of whom are beholden to you for their financial interests you have created a kangaroo court.
The oversight board is composed entirely of partisan people, all of whom have known political leanings. None of them are truly conservative, all are known to be anti-Trump. It is no coincidence that the board is being put in place just in time for the for the US election. The board members have been selected for many months and the board has been in planning for far longer.
I look forward Facebook and their kangaroo court soon having to deal with a real court. Big tech is not above the law, and shams like this cannot be allowed to stand.
Of course it's a sham (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Let me guess, you get your news from Rachel Maddow at MSNBC? Orange man bad? There is no censorship by big tech?
Re: (Score:1)
We cannot tolerate right-wing terrorism any longer. Various people in governme
Re: (Score:2)
It's Monday, your doctors should be back in the office, you can get your meds filled adjusted and filled again.
Nice (Score:2)
Right-wingers are having their true colors shown this election cycle: They are anti-American terrorists that hate elections, and the rule of law. They are so afraid of losing power so they'll do anything to manipulate the outcome, even kill federal officers or burn down police stations. I e
Re: (Score:2)
I'm more than willing to debate someone that I disagree with, I do so all the time. However I can't debate someone who's either mentally ill or disingenuous and trolling.
If you want me to take you seriously can start by explaining how the very fine people hoax actually went done. I'll give you a hint, There's lots of video and Joe Biden is lying everytime he talks about it.
Re: (Score:2)
The board is a sham designed to give Facebook the appearance of impartiality.
They are trying to comply with the demands of groups like Stop Hate For Profit [stophateforprofit.org] who are demanding an "independent" censorship board (that censors all the things they don't like but none of the things they do like, of course). Since there's no such thing as impartial censorship, this is all they can do. It's a shame: an entire generation of people will have to learn, the hard way, why this doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
Not likely. (Score:2)
"Of all the criticisms that are lodged against Facebook, I think one of the biggest is that we can't trust them," Jamal Greene, a Columbia Law School professor and co-chair of the Oversight Board, said in an interview in September. "One of the aims of the Oversight Board is to try to establish an institution that can be trusted..."
Is there really any such thing as an institution that can be trusted? We'd be wise to answer that with a global 'no.' In certain circumstances, and to a certain extent, we might trust an institution for the sake of expediency. But Facebook isn't likely to ever be one of those.
Curse of knowledge (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm also unfortunately through a great deal of experience aware that none of these positions live up to expectations or standards.
I guarantee you people in those positions are the most likely to impose political censorship.
People like me who endeavour to be technocratic driven by individualist principles of free thinking, truth, liberty and operating in accordance to reality should be able to rely heavily on people in those positions but we cannot.
Mass communications providers such as Facebook need enormous reform but I don't think this is it and I don't think that this will really be an independent body. This will be nothing more than false expert driven partisanship purely for the sake of appearances.
I guarantee you for example these so called human rights experts are only going to care about defending the image of Islam or trans people and demanding more mass immigration to western nations.
Who gives a shit who gives a fuck (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't like the policies of facebook then don't use it. They can moderate as they see fit and you are free to patronize their platform or not. There are no shortages of social networks.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, if you dont want to be in the yellow pages thats everyone uses, you can easily make an index card and pin it on notice board somewhere. Its totally the same exposure. /s
Facebook is basically the yellow pages of the Internet, most government services, police, fire departments, health departments, doctors offices, plumbers, repair, etc have a facebook page. They even accepted money from the government to grow. Advertisers might not want to be on edgy political pages, but theres tons of advertiser
Ministry of Truth (Score:2)
Haha. Right. (Score:2)
"... can now file an appeal to Facebook's Independent Oversight Board."
Haha, just in case you weren't wasting enough of your time already posting to fb in the first place. You better be at least a billionaire if you think it will be reversed on "appeal."
Note that we are now establishing a parallel system of enforcement of FB's version of Sharia law.
This is just a bullshit move (Score:2)
20 journalists, academics, (Score:2)
OK so all lefty dems
I also love the 90 day evaluation period. So they take things down they don't like then quietly put it back 3 months later if they don't think they can sell a complete block with out getting caught?
Well, to be fair, 3 months is... (Score:2)
long enough to censor the election and any posts related to the post-election lawsuits that are likely this year...
After Facebook gets their way and Biden is safely in office, or things go they way they oppose but the lawsuits are over and there's no hope for them to have any further impact, they can end the "trial period" and pretend it had nothing to do with election interference (and hope nobody looks back at it too see how many non-US-citizens Facebook used in their election meddling...)